


blackout poetry

by Nightblaze



Category: The Wilds (TV 2020)
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Jeffrey Galanis Hate Club, this is about girls supporting girls and hating jeff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28365549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightblaze/pseuds/Nightblaze
Summary: Rachel was about to throw The Nature of Her into the fire when Dot noticed and stepped in.“Hey, wait, don’t burn it all right now. That’s, like, three hundred pages of tinder, we don’t want to waste it.”
Comments: 24
Kudos: 118





	blackout poetry

**Author's Note:**

> shoutout to Meg for coming up with some of the poems and Mon for being my enabler. love yall! <3

Rachel was about to throw  _ The Nature of Her  _ into the fire when Dot noticed and stepped in.

“Hey, wait, don’t burn it all right now. That’s, like, three hundred pages of tinder, we don’t want to waste it.”

Rachel looked back at Leah, who nodded, and then passed the book over to Dot. “All for your inventory,” Rachel joked.

“Damn right,” Dot confirmed before tearing out the title page and tossing it into the flames.

Things spiral out of control the longer they stay on the island. Surviving is difficult, but they get the hang of that. What they  _ don’t  _ get the hang of is the boredom—there were only so many times you could play Uno before the thought of it started to sicken you.

One night, as they sat around the fire, trying to keep warm, Fatin rose from her seat and cleared her throat. She held Jeffrey’s book out in front of her as she read from the pages. “Stinky boy,” she said clearly and with a vaguely British accent, “he has never seen a bathtub.”

“What the hell?” Martha laughed. “That’s not actually a line, is it?”

Leah shook her head. She had read the book way too many times and that was not in there. She could think of a couple chapters where Jeffrey had written about bathtubs, but… “Oh my God, Fatin, did you make blackout poetry?”

Fatin grinned. “I call that one ‘Jeffrey Galanis.’” Leah shook her head, smiling. “Leah, I know you like him or whatever, but come on. He’s also a pretentious dick.”

“No, yeah, you’re right about that,” Leah admitted.

“Who the fuck is Jeffrey Galanis?” Toni asked from the other side of the circle.

“My ex,” Leah said. “It was, uh, bad. Way too old for me. This one—” she gestured to Fatin “—has been getting me to see that.”

“Wait, it’s working?” Fatin sounded shocked.

“Um, yeah?”

“Fuck yes!” Fatin flipped a couple pages. “That means I can read this one. Title, ‘Advice for Leah Rilke.’” She cleared her throat again and put on the half-British half-nothing in particular accent. “Bitch, I love you. Kick him in the dick and balls.”

The circle erupted into noise.

“I will drink to that,” Leah laughed and took a sip of water.

So began a tradition. Some camping groups will tell ghost stories or play icebreaker games, and they did that, too, but most nights they turned the campfire into a blackout poetry slam.

The range of tone they achieved was truly astonishing.

“So this is called ‘Chapter Six.’ Room sucks, bye,” Martha said. “Concise. Look it up.” Somewhere, Leah knew Ian was suddenly howling with laughter.

“The truth of the world,” Toni read, “is pussy.”

“High flies the bird,” Nora said softly. “Slow the descent. Glory just out of reach.” Everybody groaned at the genuine (albeit cliche) poetry.

Dot acted like she was in a Shakespearian tragedy, soliloquizing to a crowd of seven. “Love is myth!” She paused for dramatic effect. “Only bad bitches real.”

Shelby took the stand. “God died so we could sin. Our love is holy.” She gave a smile to Toni and the girls hollered at them to get a room, or at least a lychee tree.

One night, after Leah opened up to Rachel more about the burning building that was her and Jeff, the diver cleared her throat. “This is ‘Jeffrey Galanis, part two,’” she said with a nod to Fatin, who grinned in anticipation. “He should learn from goat. Die.”

Leah spat out the water she’d taken a sip of, coughing as she tried to laugh.

As much as they tended to butt heads, she was grateful that out of everyone in the world, these were the people she had gotten stuck with.


End file.
